


Mindful

by orphan_account



Series: More Beautiful for Having Been Broken [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Caring, F/F, Gentle Sex, Meditation, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They were joined in their love for one another, for the pleasure of the fight, bound in their righteousness and passion. Alex felt too, their love of ritual. Astra’s body responded in ways that Alex could see with her naked eye when she and Maggie deployed the words that Kryptonian warrior/lovers had used with one another for thousands of years. She saw the hairs on Astra’s arms stand up when she or Maggie would use them, could see her eyes go hazy with lust. They loved this ritual, because it was comforting, because it was sensual, because it opened the paths between them and allowed their hearts and breaths and lusts and beings to flow from one to the other.





	1. Mindful

“ _Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”  –Thich Nhat Hanh_

Alex felt the air enter her lungs, felt her ribcage expand. The morning tasted cool and dewy, and filled her with a sense of ease as she absorbed it. She listened to the sound of the air entering through her nose, the expansion of her body as it flowed into her, visualized the individual chambers of her lungs expanding to accommodate it, the aveoli drawing oxygen from it, imparting the red to her blood as it flowed through her veins. She listened for her blood, for its pulsing, its rushing. She listened for her heartbeat. And there was nothing but the sounds of her body, and the morning. The stir of leaves in the trees and a lone cricket melded their songs just at the edge of her consciousness. She was a temple and she existed in the world, as part of it, and she was. She simply was. And this was still new after so many years of not simply being.

She felt Maggie and Astra leaning just on the other side of the screen door, watching her, knew the soft smiles they shared at the sight of her sitting and being, at least for a few moments, at peace.

She was a temple and she existed in the world, as they existed in the world, and she loved them as she loved nothing else. They waited on the side of that screen door, letting her have that space, but they were there and part of her.

  
***

  
In bed, she learned to practice mindfulness, with one or with both. With Maggie, she was aware of the variation of their skin tones as their limbs tangled together, the way the tiny hairs along her hairline curled a little when she broke a sweat, the soft catch of her breath in the back of throat. Maggie, her breath, was beautiful, was part of her own breath, part of the world.

With Astra, she was aware of how the strands of light and dark blue in her eyes looked like flame when she was in the fullness of her lust. She was aware of the stars in her pupils, the set in her jaw, the way she licked her lips in anticipation of another deep kiss.

She was aware of the way her body responded to each; with Maggie, her blood was a soft, tapping rainfall, she burned slowly and their bodies mingled like sighing. With Astra, she was a thunderclap and she was shot through with hot flashes of lightning that seared the clouds in her head. She let herself be soft and break against Astra’s hardness.

Together, they were more than the sum of their parts. Maggie and Astra together were a gentle storm, and Alex loved being in it. She was part of them both, and they were part of the world, and its rains, and its clouds that emptied themselves into its rivers.

  
***

  
In battle she learned to practice mindfulness, as she flanked Astra on the right, and Maggie on the left. She let herself hear their breath, let herself feel their movements even when she couldn’t see them. She followed their scents, the movement of the air between them. She watched the enemy, and listened for the enemy she could not see, and felt its approach in the soles of her shoes.

She was aware of Astra in her suit, the shimmering blue or the tactical black, and the fearsome grace with which she moved. She was aware of the gentleness with which Astra’s feet touched the earth, the reverence with which she walked the world that she adopted as her home. And she was ever mindful of Maggie, far more fragile than Astra but far more fierce, in her way. Armed and ready to charge, her love of the fight evident from the way her dark eyes burned.

They moved as one, as three in one, and Alex knew when she needed to break free and distribute herself differently as the situation demanded. When it came down to firing her weapons she felt the impact of the recoil in her shoulder and smelled the discharge of the ordinance as it exited. When it came down to hand to hand, she felt the blows in her fists, in her body, in her heartbeat. Conflict and destruction were necessary to the order of the world as much as creation and peace, existing in one another’s service. She understood that now.

  
**

  
They were joined in their love for one another, for the pleasure of the fight, bound in their righteousness and passion. Alex felt too, their love of ritual. Astra’s body responded in ways that Alex could see with her naked eye when she and Maggie deployed the words that Kryptonian warrior/lovers had used with one another for thousands of years. She saw the hairs on Astra’s arms stand up when she or Maggie would use them, could see her eyes go hazy with lust. They loved this ritual, because it was comforting, because it was sensual, because it opened the paths between them and allowed their hearts and breaths and lusts and beings to flow from one to the other.

So Alex began her days with the breathing, the in and out, the reminder of how to be mindful. And her warrior/lovers enjoyed it, enjoyed that ritual as much as any other that bound them, that soothed them, that opened them to one another. Maggie was a lapsed Catholic but she nevertheless enjoyed a quiet prayer now and again, and kissed her St Christopher medal before a fight. And Astra was made of regiment and ritual and Alex loved the steadiness of her, powerful like a rock, like a mountain.

And she breathed, and she listened. She was a temple, and she was in the world, and part of the world and her loves were in her, and part of her.

She breathed. In. Out. She beheld the wan sunrise. She opened her eyes to all of it. She rose and turned to them and they smiled.

“We fight, today,” Astra said, and her eyes burned in the pale light.

“But first we eat,” Maggie added, and Alex smelled the strong coffee and the waffles drifting out through the screen doors.

Alex nodded. Yes, this was living. This was being. It was love.

She was pleased.


	2. Easeful

Maggie was, in the beginning, the hardest to care for.  Unlike Astra, who often simply refused to admit she needed things even when it was obvious, Maggie was often not even aware that she needed something, and only when her two lovers had had enough of her surliness or low-level sadness, would they come together to puzzle out what was wrong and how to triage it effectively.

Murder scenes were the most frequent and common trigger for which Maggie needed the two of them.  Maggie loved the chase, the fight, the capture.  She did not love the crimes.  The bodies often left her filled with anger and grief.  People were rotten, yes.  Humans, and aliens too, and everyone knew that, but a dead body in the middle of a floor was about as stark a testament to it as you could get.  And that would often bleed into “the world is rotten.”  And she would come home bleak, and grumbling, and refusing to eat dinner and not wanting to be touched.

Often it was Astra who could break through the dark clouds hanging around Maggie in those moments.  She would gently lean over her shoulder, brush her dark hair out of the way, drop a kiss against her hairline and whisper, “Maggie.  I see you.”

Those words held oceans of meaning, and the longer the three of them were together, the vaster those oceans became.  In those moments, it meant, “I understand your pain, I am with you, I feel you, and you are not alone.”  

And that alone was enough.  Maggie opened her eyes to her own sadness, and allow them to care for her.

Alex would sit next to her on the living room couch, take her hand, and wait for her permission before doing more.  Reaching her had to be done carefully.  She made her voice as soft as she ever had, murmured reassurance that she was allowed to live where others died not because of a greater plan, or because one soul was more deserving than another, but simply because she had been lucky and others had not.  But nevertheless, the life she had was a beautiful one and it deserved to be lived.  To do any less would be a rejection of that gift of fate.

Maggie didn’t cleave to her gods, not much any more, apart from the occasional Hail Mary, and a medallion she wore into firefights, and an old set of rosary beads in the bottom of a nightstand drawer.  In times like these, Astra would fetch those beads for her and Maggie would run them through her fingers, muttering half-remembered prayers.  It seemed to soothe her when other things did not.  It had been Astra's idea that she reach for her gods, in the absence of any other means to deal with the darkness of the world.

Astra sat beside her, never questioning the need for Maggie to connect with her deities in times when she faced mortality, faced evil and darkness.  She kept a gentle hand on her back and watched her face, eyes closed, watched the tension lifting from it.

Alex would relieve her of the beads when she seemed done with them, and only then would she embrace her.  Alex would pull her close, and Maggie’s chin would rest on her shoulder, and then Astra would come in behind her, and wrap arms around them both.  For long, gentle moments, they would hold Maggie, support her between their two bodies, letting her let go.  She no longer needed to hold herself up; they would do that for her.  And then, with the slowest of affections, Astra would kiss the back of her neck, and Alex would kiss her cheek, and Maggie would relax and let their warm bodies hold her upright.  The tenderest, most careful kisses, laid here and there and here again, brought Maggie to tilt her head back and rest herself against Astra, and allow Alex to kiss her exposed throat.  

They could spend a long time this way, until Maggie took one or the other’s face between her hands, and drew them in to kiss her mouth.  “See me,” she would whisper, and neither Alex nor Astra could say anything but “I see you.”

Astra carried her to bed.  The undressing could take several minutes, as they always proceeded gently.  Nothing was hurried.  Maggie had to be ready to receive their love and sometimes, that took time.  Each soft kiss was an affirmation of her strength, her bravery, her value to them and in the world.  Each touch was careful, reverent, a testament to the depth of their shared love.  Feather-light stroking touches from limb to limb brought warmth and electricity to Maggie’s body, and they watched her hum alive under their hands.  

Alex had spent time showing Astra how Maggie liked to be licked, and Astra had found she enjoyed pleasing her in this way.  She spent long moments resting her cheek against the smooth skin of Maggie’s inner thighs, softly nursing her from her darkness into light with her tongue.  Alex never stopped kissing Maggie’s warm mouth and swallowing her sweet, stifled moans.  The rest of Maggie's body was her province and her fingers roamed it with benevolent purpose.  Alex and Astra were exceedingly gentle, but insistent, firm in the conviction that she needed and deserved the love they so carefully lavished upon her.

Astra found the humans’ term “coming” a curious choice for describing that moment in sex, but in these times with Maggie, gently easing her from her sadness, it seemed to apply:  she and Alex and their loving attention drew her from that dark place, waited for her to arrive into light.  Maggie would  shiver all over as if resurfacing from the cold depths of the water, her burdens incinerated in the heat of orgasm, and Alex would kiss her deeply, and then kiss the taste of her from Astra’s lips.  

“This is being alive, Maggie,” they would tell her.  “Be alive with us.”  Sometimes Maggie cried, sometimes she just lay there looking on them both with disbelief, as if she could not fathom how she could possibly deserve something so good.

They would hold her between them then, until she fell asleep, and watch her as she slept, to be sure her dreams were not troubled.  

Maggie was not so hard to care for.  It simply required two pairs of hands, both of them exceedingly gentle.


	3. Faithful

Astra had never expected that she would find herself in the company of two such as these.  Alex and Maggie were a center of gravity that held her gently to the earth, let her breathe and be.  She had loved Non, in her way, but it had never been like this.

Astra and Maggie took care with their Alexandra, guarded her sobriety with watchful eyes.  They rarely entered social situations where they weren’t together, so the two of them remained ever sensitive to whether it was becoming a situation in which Alex might be prevailed upon to drink again.  Most times, they could steer her out of the room for a few moments and let her take a few meditative breaths to center herself, and then she could go back.  Sometimes, it meant recognizing when even that was not enough and she simply had to leave.  They had both become very sensitive to that.  They kept faith with one another, protecting not just each other’s bodies, but hearts and spirits as well.

Astra had been alive too long to be as unaware of her own needs, as Maggie sometimes was.  Where Alex’s struggles remained largely in the present, in keeping herself in check and maintaining her clarity, Astra’s were mostly ghosts from the past.  Ghosts of Krypton, ghosts of murder, ghosts of war, ghosts of prison.  Ghosts of Myriad.  She still shuddered to think that Alex very nearly died during Myriad, and that worse, it would not have been a warrior’s death.  That thought particularly plagued her.  Alex deserved a warrior’s death.

Sometimes, she simply found herself beset with longing for a world that no longer existed.  Kara of course remembered a great deal about Krypton, but not the way Astra did.  Astra could still smell the scent of the foods in the eateries, the flowers in the grow-houses.  She could hear the music, remember the poetry.  She missed feeling the presence of Rao, which seemed so faint here, except when she was with her two beloveds.  She recognized that they did not share her faith, or were skeptical of the source of what bound them, but Maggie and Alex were lights of Rao, touched by the souls of legend, and she felt his presence most when they were together and blessed in his sight.

It was as if Rao knew all that she had lost, and pitied her, and given her these two in recompense.  They became her home, her connections to the lost world.

When Astra was in these sad, strange places, she would deny it.  Alex knew that she needed to feel grounded again, she recognized the longing in her face because she had seen it so many times on Kara’s face growing up.  Sometimes the constant mystery of things was exhausting, and Astra longed for the world she had known.  In those times, Alex would bring her out on the deck to meditate, or the three of them would go running in the park, or if time allowed, they would go to the green-lit training room at the DEO and spar with one another.  Astra had been teaching them one of the many Kryptonian fighting styles she knew, one that Alex told her bore a great similarity to something called Krav Maga, with its holds and maneuvers.   Alex picked it up immediately.  Maggie was slower to learn but more adept once she did.  She enjoyed this enormously; it was movement, it was grounding in her own body, it was contact with her beloveds.  It was touching something of the old ways.

Alex had downloaded all the Kryptonian poetry and literature she could get from Alura’s AI, and they would sit together in the living room, sprawled across each other.  Astra would lay her head in Maggie’s lap and Maggie would play with her hair, and the two of them would listen with eyes closed as Alex read to them from the collection she’d put together on her iPad.  Astra loved the old words, the old stories, and she loved hearing them tumbling from Alex’s lips.  

Astra loved coffee because it reminded her of something she used to drink on Krypton.  So Maggie had gone a step further, and had taken on the project of helping Astra attempt to recreate approximations of Kryptonian foods.  Every once in awhile, she’d have Astra describe a favorite dish of hers in painstaking detail, and then they’d go to the grocery store, or the produce stands in Chinatown, and buy a dozen different vegetables and fruits and meats, and they’d sit at home in the kitchen as Astra sampled bites of each one and declared, “This is not like the vegetable for that dish, but it does remind me of another…”  And Maggie kept a notebook where she wrote down the notes and slowly assembled recipes, massaging the ingredients until they came very near to what Astra remembered of those foods.  Some flavors could not be recreated, of course, but Maggie was intrepid and creative, and often knew how to combine spices in ways that approximated the ones that Astra missed.  Over time, she had managed to put together about a dozen or so recipes based on Astra’s descriptions and tweaks as she sampled the efforts and offered thoughts on what was missing.   So on those days when Astra felt out of sorts, of out place, out of time, Maggie would go to the notebook and make something that tasted like home.  

Alex took them one day to the museum, to the Japanese wing.  While Astra enjoyed art, and abstract art in particular, it was the pottery that Alex wanted to show her.  There was a small, subtly lit room filled with vases, plates, and the like, all of which were spiderwebbed with veins of lustrous gold.  “They call this Kintsugi,” Alex said softly.  

“What does it mean?” Astra asked, her eyes studying the pieces.  They were beautiful, but she did not understand their significance.  

“It’s an entire art form,” Alex told her, “devoted to repairing broken pottery with gold.”  She looked at Astra, and then at Maggie, who smiled immediately, understanding Alex’s meaning.

Astra understood too.  She had been broken; they all had, in their own ways.  And now they were repairing each other, and joining their pieces and jagged edges together with gold, making themselves into a new and more beautiful whole.  They took a bench, and sat quietly, side by side, looking at a large plate with three cranes painted on it, which was shot through with ripples of gold.  They stayed for a long while, not talking, just contemplating its perfection.

Their souls fit, quietly and without fanfare.  Their shades of faith, the colors of their intellects, touched and overlapped and made something beautiful.  It would not be complete without any one of them.  Astra did not get caught up in questioning her worthiness of this gift, but accepted it for what it was.  She thanked Rao for sending her these two souls, for the center of gravity that love had created, for the world that they made together.

Astra knew she was work.  They each were, in their ways.  But that was true of anything worth having.  Rao only gave one the opportunity.  And this was one she would not waste.


End file.
